


Old Lullabies, Old Scars

by howtotrainyournana



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: A whole family of OCs, Angst, Anxiety, Blood, Death, Fire, Fluff, Gen, Hey look it's the second part of my fic that I promised and that's actually a prequel, Introspection, Just a warning that this does NOT have a happy ending, Panic, Possession, Singing, War, injuries, portal ford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-18 02:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10607679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howtotrainyournana/pseuds/howtotrainyournana
Summary: A simple question from his great-niece sends Ford on a trip down memory lane, back to another dimension and to another question from a hopeful little girl.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there my lovelies! This is a ficlet-turned-actual-fic-because-I-have-no-self-control that ties in with my fic "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" and my Portal Ford drabbles. 
> 
> This is NOT a fic with a happy ending to it, regardless of how it starts out, so be forewarned. There is blood and violence and talk of war (but also hugs and pie and music, so it's not all dark). I hope you all have a lovely day and week!
> 
> -Nana Graye

_“Grunkle Ford, will you sing me a lullaby?”_

The question reminded him of another time, another dimension, nearly three decades earlier. It was in one of the first dimensions he spent time in, one ravaged by the war Bill raged throughout the Multiverse. He had found comrades and compatriots in the citizens of a small backwater planet in a far corner of that universe - a place quite similar to his own earth, in nature and in inhabitants. Barring the natural bioluminescence in their skin and the extra set of eyelids, they were a nearly identical species to humanity. He fit right in. (One of the few times he could honestly say that, even later after his extensive travels).

There was a family he befriended - a mother caring for a daughter while her husband aided the local militia to keep his family safe; a pair of aunts that aided her; an old and incapacitated great-uncle who nevertheless would do anything to protect his great-niece from the horrors of the world, and who treated her like the sun itself. There was an uncle, whose fate was still unknown, who had been estranged after a fight with one of the sisters and who had been all but thrown out of the family over what was later discovered to be a silly mistake ( _and didn’t that hit just a little too close to home - but he couldn’t dwell on that, couldn’t think of HIM, couldn’t bear to face those memories and emotions_ ). And finally, there was the family pet, a large docile creature with wings of leather and the ability to breath ice (Ford would have described it as most similar to a dragon, if he had managed to keep his notes from that particular planet) that they affectionately named “Snowy”.

Things were good, peaceful even, for the several months Ford spent in their company. He aided the militia with intel on Bill (and they, in turn, supplied him with information that was otherwise unknown to outsiders about Bill) and aided the family with improvements around the farm and the small settlement. He brought messages back and forth from the militia front lines camp to the settlement for the family, who were able to keep in touch with their man on the front lines. The mother was supremely grateful to Ford, taking it upon herself to make him a customized trench coat that would be able to stand up to the rigors of travel. 

The daughter took a while to warm to him, but once she heard him sing she was practically attached to his hip, begging for songs and stories and making her own music to share with him. She was a small thing, all of twelve years old and slight for her age - from the harshness of her environment and the stress of the war, of that he had no doubt. He took to singing her lullabies each night, after she begged and begged and begged him. The aunts fretted over him and treated him like their little brother, which only slightly annoyed him (they were very good cooks, the both of them). The great-uncle took the longest to warm to Ford, but after Ford saved the daughter from a large cat-beast that had wandered into the settlement from the forest (the family pet was at work on the farm and was not able to protect the child, whom it otherwise accompanied everywhere) he was given gruff but genuine acceptance.

If only things had remained that easy, and that bright, and that peaceful.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

There was no warning when it happened.

It had been a particularly productive day. Ford had assisted the great-uncle in fitting a new apparatus to the family tractor that would allow for even more efficient plowing and for the breaking up of the hard-packed earth that was otherwise unusable. It would give them several hundred more acres of usable land, which was the equivalent of a new lease on life for the subsisting settlement. The pair of aunts had pulled out all of the stops in celebration and had surprised Ford and the rest of the family with two fresh-baked pies – a rarity, as several of the ingredients were extremely hard to come by and therefore expensive. One was a mixed-berry pie, a combination of what Ford would have called blackberry and loganberry and boysenberry and blueberry at home on Earth. The other was apple, sweet and flaky and so like the pies from his childhood he could hardly stand it. 

Surprisingly, apples were called apples on this planet as well.

They had gathered together as a family around dinner and the pies. Afterwards, the great-uncle pulled out a stringed instrument similar to a banjo ( _and didn’t that send another wave of homesickness and mixed emotions through Ford_ ) and one of the aunts pulled out a harmonica. They struck up a tune. Before he knew it, he’d been swept up by the mother into dancing together around the room. He couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out of him as they spun and bowed to each other, hands clapping and clasping and turning. 

It amazed him how cheerful and lively these people could be, even in the midst of such uncertainty and danger. 

He twirled her away into the arms of her sister, who caught her up and took up the lead, laughing too as they danced. Ford sashayed over to the daughter, who had been cheering on the dancing from the feet of her great-uncle. He bowed to her and offered his hand. She leapt up squealing and pulled him into the dancing circle.

They danced and sang until they collapsed, exhausted, into chairs and onto pillows and blankets on the floor. The hour was late and the room dark save for the candlelight and the embers of the fire. Ford had taken one of the rocking chairs and the daughter had nestled into his arms as he began telling stories of the amazing creatures of Gravity Falls. The family loved his tales of his research, for which he was supremely grateful. Recounting his research to willing listeners gave him the double benefit of reinforcing the good he was able to accomplish during his tenure in the small Oregon town (regardless of its unsavory last few months) and providing him a small pocket of fond, happy homesickness in a life otherwise occupied with survival. It allowed him to lose himself in the gilt happiness of the past and lose, for a time, the troubles of the present.

When the firelight was burned down almost to ash and the candles to stubs, Ford gently rose and bundled the now-sleeping daughter into his arms. The aunts had retired to bed shortly before, and the great-uncle dozed in his chair by the fireplace under an afghan the mother had tucked around him. She rocked in her chair across from Ford, knitting a long scarf from a rich cream-colored wool. She smiled at the sight of her daughter tucked against Ford’s neck. 

“You make a great uncle,” she said, eyes soft in the glow of the dying fire. A smile eased across Ford’s face at the words, a warmth settling in his chest that he hadn’t felt in a very, very long time. The smile stayed as he carried the daughter back to her room.

_I don’t think I would mind staying here for a while._

As he tucked her in bed and went to stand, a small sleepy voice broke through the quiet.

“Uncle Ford, will you sing me a lullaby?”

The warmth in his chest grew at the casual use of the title. He sat back down at the edge of her bed, tucking the blankets more snugly about her.

“Of course, my dear. What would you like me to sing?” he asked.

She grinned sleepily up at him, eyes bright. “The usual. The one with all the funny words.”

Stanford smiled back at her. “Okay, but only as long as you promise to go to sleep.” He didn’t really have to ask. She’d be out like a light before he was through the first stanza. She hummed agreement, eyes already falling shut.

_“When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, sure ‘tis like a morn in spring._  
_In the lilt of Irish laughter, you can hear the angels sing._  
_When Irish hearts are happy, all the world seems bright and gay,_  
_And When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, sure, they steal your heart away!”_

Sure enough, her soft snores drifted up to Stanford by the last line. He smiled down at her and pressed a light kiss to her forehead. He walked back through the house to the entryway, passing the mother still knitting in her rocking chair and the great-uncle still sleeping. Her eyes flicked up to him then back down as she gave him a brief, warm smile.

Stanford pulled on the dark trenchcoat the mother had made. Nights were still cold here, though they were deep in the summer months. He took care to latch and lock the door behind him before making his way across the yard to the barn. The radio communications equipment was housed in the loft. He had made a vast array of improvements in the few months he had been staying here and they could now communicate easily and securely via radio to the front lines. That accomplishment had earned a night of celebration as well. Stanford smiled at the memory.

Settling in behind the worn wooden desk, he flicked switches, dialed knobs, and cranked levers until the machines hummed to life.

“ _Pinus clausa_ radioing _Homefront_ , come in _Homefront_ , over.” Stanford grinned to himself at the codenames. They were hardly necessary for safety (Stanford had secured the lines himself) but the father and daughter had insisted on them. They a very similar dry sense of humor.

The radio crackled static back at him.

Stanford wasn’t terribly concerned – the outpost he was hailing was sparsely staffed, and if they were under duress all hands would be needed for defense. Answering social calls was a secondary priority. It was hardly out of the ordinary for them to ignore a message from the settlement. Still, he hailed them a second, third, and fourth time over the course of the next hour to make sure.

Only static answered him back.

With a sigh, he hung the radio back up. He had been looking forward to chatting with the brave men and women on the front lines. Several of them were from this very settlement, and he would have been delighted to tell them of the improvements to the tractor and the brightened future of the village. His hand had just gone to flick the all-off switch when the radio crackled to life. Not a full message, but a sign of life nonetheless. His face lit up again and he lifted the radio from the receiver.

“ _Pinus clausa_ radioing _Homefront_ , come in _Homefront_ , over.”

The radio crackled again, but no answer came. Stanford frowned.

“ _Pinus clausa_ radioing _Homefront_ , come in _Homefront_ , over,” he said, and waited. And waited. And waited.

He began to think that maybe the radio was simply malfunctioning when it crackled back to life and a voice and message came through, high and full of static and singing.

_“There’s a tear in your eye and I’m wondering why,_  
_For it never should be there at all._  
_With such power in your smile, sure a stone you’d beguile,_  
_So there’s never a teardrop should fall,”_

A chill ran through him and he dropped the radio in shock. _No. No it can’t be. I know that voice, but he can’t be here. He can’t be here, he CAN’T-_

_“When your sweet lilting laughter’s like some fairy song_  
_And your eyes twinkle bright as can be._  
_You should laugh all the while and all other times smile,_  
_And now smile a smile for me.”_

A maniacal laugh echoed through the speakers around him and Stanford’s heart pounded. He would know that voice, that laugh, that _madness_ anywhere. It was, unmistakably, Bill Cipher cackling over the radio.

Singing the lullaby that he had just sang to the daughter not an hour earlier.

In a flash he was down the ladder from the loft, radio still crackling with Bill’s laughter. A mantra of _she’s safe she’s safe she’s safe_ warred with a mantra of _she’s not she’s not she’s not_ in his mind. From the outside the house looked peaceful, but who knew what lurked within. He had drawn his phase gun without a second thought and brought it up to battle height.

Quietly unlocking the door, he creaked it open and slipped noiselessly inside, sweeping the room and finding nothing amiss. The fire was banked, the rest of the family seeming to have gone to bed. _‘Seeming to have’, which means nothing_. He crept across the room and down the hall to the daughter’s room. It was quiet in the house, but whether it was the usual quiet of a sleeping household or the choking calm of a trap he couldn’t tell through his adrenaline rush.

He turned the doorknob to her room quickly, closing the door swiftly behind him and sweeping the room with his gun. Seeing nothing, he crept to her bedside and brushed a hand over her face. Warm, soft puffs of air met his palm. She was simply asleep, breathing easily. Stanford let out a sigh of relief, slipping the gun back into its holster and pacing back towards the door. As he went to leave he heard the bed creak and a small tentative voice thick with sleep.

“Uncle Stanford?” she asked, rubbing her eyes and stifling a yawn. “Is something wrong?”

He turned back to her with what he hoped was a calming smile. “Nothing at all, my dear. Don’t worry about it. Go back to sleep now.”

She yawned again, seeming to wake up more, and fixed him with a sleepy smile. “Okay but, can I have a lullaby again?”

The question made the warmth from earlier flare up again in his heart alongside a fierce rush of protectiveness, breaking through some of his worry and fear. Stanford opened his mouth to reply but before he could the world exploded in a burst of pain and noise and cold, and his vision went dark.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

The first thing he was aware of was blood running down his face.

The next was that there was a large weight pressing down on his chest, and that it was hard to breathe.

The last thing he became aware of was the sound of someone singing. It grated against his ears, the dual tones of a high, reedy voice being grated out by vocal cords meant for use in another language several octaves lower. The voice was still unmistakable though.

_“For your smile is a part of the love in your heart,_  
_And it makes even sunshine more bright._  
_Like the linnet’s sweet song, crooning all the day long._  
_Comes your laughter so tender and bright.”_

Stanford shuddered as the voice cackled in laughter, struggling out from under the weight of the support beam that had been crushing him and standing. Through the haze in his mind and on his glasses, he was able to get a full view of the situation before ducking out of the rubble and stumbling away in pure grief and terror.

The family pet, Snowy the ice dragon, stood a few feet away where the daughter’s bed used to be. Its head was thrown back towards the sky and its maw was wide and the horrible, dissonant voice echoed out of it. Bright red painted its jaws and chest and shreds of a familiar nightgown peeked out from its claws.

All sixteen eyes were a lurid yellow with slitted pupils.

The horrible crooning monster seemed not to see as Stanford slipped and skidded away over the shifting mass of rubble, headed towards the still-intact barn. The entire house was destroyed. Ice chunks and spears peppered the disaster and no two walls still stood together. He had been lucky – the support beam that had been across his chest had actually stopped other rubble from crushing him. Blood still poured down his face and clotted in his hair from a clean slice across his temple to the back of his head. He suspected one of the ice spears had just narrowly missed taking his head off and he suppressed a shudder.

He slipped on a particularly slick patch of rubble and fell, catching himself on his hands on the wet, surprisingly squishy ground. It took a second to register the blank eyes and wrinkled, bloodied face inches from his own, but when it did he reared back and scrambled away, squeezing a hand over his mouth to keep from screaming or groaning or retching. Two other crushed forms laying side-by-side nearby caught the corner of his vision. He schooled his eyes away from them and stumbled on resolutely towards the barn. 

The callous lullaby still crooned from behind him.

Climbing the ladder was made difficult by the bl– _climbing the ladder was not difficult_ and he scrambled to the radio as soon as he reached the loft. It was thankfully still operational and he wasted no time in flicking open communications to all stations and airwaves. _Everyone_ needed to know that Bill was here, on this planet. The warfront had just advanced.

“ _PINUS CLAUSA WITH A CODE YELLOW. I REPEAT CODE YELLOW. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. CODE YELLOW. CODE YELLOW. CODE YELLOW. CODE YELLOW. CODE-_ "

He was cut off abruptly as the radio blared in his hands, screeching out an awful cacophony of noises and familiar laughter before erupting in flames and shooting sparks at his face. Stanford backed up and a moment later the whole machine burst into flames, catching the nearby bales of straw and feed on fire. Stanford leapt back down the ladder and took off out of the back of the barn towards the woods. Just as he ran outside, however, a strong pair of hands caught his arm and spun him around. Stanford struggled in the grasp, desperate to get free, when a familiar voice broke through his frenzy.

“Stanford! Stanford calm down! Stanford! _Homefront to pinus clausa come in!_ ” the man hissed out. Stanford blinked, mind blanking as he stopped thrashing. _How could he be here so quickly, unless … ? Did he know this was going to happen?_ Suddenly the radio silence from before held a much more ominous connotation.

“… couldn’t get here fast enough but reinforcements are close. You need to get out of here, we got new intel, it’s _you_ he’s looking for,” the man said. Before Stanford could answer, a small metallic disk was forced into his hands and he was pushed towards the forest roughly. He stumbled forward, looking down at the object in his hands. It was a prototype dimensional transporter, powered by a small radioactive crystal capable of generating enough power to open a portal to another dimension – a portal big enough for just a single person. 

It was an escape pod for one.

Stanford’s voice caught in his throat before he managed a choked reply. “You can’t–I mean I can’t just–this is my faul–why would you—“ He was cut off by a raised hand from the other man.

“Stanford, this is _my_ home. _My_ responsibility. I don’t blame you for any of this – it was _Bill_ who did this, not you or me. _Bill_. Don’t go placing the blame on anyone other than the responsible party, _pinus clausa_.” The man offered him a sad, tired grin. 

In a moment though it was gone again, a grim determination taking over his features. The man clapped a hand to Stanford’s shoulder. “I know in my heart that _you_ are the man destined to take down Bill once and for all. Don’t let me down. Don’t let _us_ down.”

With that the man turned back to the blazing barn, pulling a large blaster off his back. Stanford was suddenly struck with the thought that Bill should have been on them by now, should have been glaring down at them haughtily with all sixteen yellow eyes, should have been hunting them down and tearing him apart just like the rest of the … rest of the …

A bloodcurdling female scream of rage and pain and fear answered his questions. The loud cracks he realized he had been hearing throughout their conversation suddenly registered as gunfire – actual bullet fire, not phase rays or acid or sound waves. The man was off then. The last glimpse of him that Stanford caught was the soldier’s armored back silhouetted in flames as he ran to fight alongside his wife.

The dissonant lullaby started up again as Stanford stumbled his way into the forest and away from the battle. Twelve shaking fingers fumbled at the commands on the transporter, knowing it was only a matter of time before Bill was free to chase him again. Dully he noted that the drying blood on his hands was not his own and was making it more difficult to operate the transporter. 

_“For the springtime of youth is the sweetest of all,_  
_There is ne'er a real care or regret._  
_And while springtime is ours, throughout all of youth’s hours,_  
_Let us smile each chance we get.”_

Finally the device whirred into functionality. A gleaming blue tear in space-time opened before him and he all but threw himself through to escape the sounds of death and destruction and _Bill_.

But not quite fast enough.

Two screams mingled with the last haunting refrain of the lullaby, burning themselves into Stanford’s heart and mind as the portal carried him away to an unknown and unforgiving future.

_“When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, sure 'tis like a morn in spring._  
_In the lilt of Irish laughter, you can hear the angels sing._  
_When Irish hearts are happy, all the world seems bright and gay,_  
_And When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, sure, they steal your heart away.”_

It would be thirty years before Stanford would – _could_ \- bring himself to sing the lullaby again.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is what was running through Stanford’s mind during his talk with Mabel in the previous fic. So hopefully that puts some of the things in the other work in perspective a bit.
> 
> I … I’m sorry. That’s all I have to say.


End file.
